[IO Islamic 1430] روشنائى نامه

Rûshanâ’înâma.

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 904 in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Hermann Ethé, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, 2 vols. (Oxford: India Office, 1903): volume 1, number 1430 here with notations and hyperlinks].

904

Rûshanâ’înâma ( روشنائى نامه).

The oldest didactic mathnawî of the Persians, ‘the book of enlightenment,’ by the same Nâṣir bin Khusrau; it has been edited with German metrical translation and an introduction by Ethé in the Zeitschrift der D.M.G., vol. 33, 1879, pp. 645-665, and vol. 34, 1880, pp. 428-464 and 617-642 (compare Dr. Teufel’s critical remarks on it, ib., vol. 36, pp. 96-106); the other four copies of this poem are in Gotha (W. Pertsch, p. 13), Leyden (Cat. Codd. Or. Lugd. Bat. ii. p. 107), and Paris (No. 781, A. du suppl., and in the private collection of M. Schefer); as date of composition appears in the Gotha codex, A.H. 420 (A.D. 1029), in the other three A.H. 343 (A.D. 954, 955), and in the present copy on fol. 57b, l. 7, A.H. 323 (A.D. 935); the correct date seems to be A.H. 440 or 441 (A.D. 1048-1050), see Zeitschrift der D. M. G., vol. 34, p. 638, note 5.

Beginning:

بنام كردگار پاك داور

كه هست از عقل و وهم و فكر برتر

Corresponding to v. 163 in Ethé’s edition (the 162 verses of the introduction are wanting here as in all copies except that of Gotha). Dated A.H. 1061 (A.D. 1651).

No. 1430, ff. 36b-54b, 2 coll., each ll. 12; large and clear Nasta’lîḳ; size, 103/8 in. by 6 in.